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Sunday, June 24, 2007

CAFE Standards Hypocrite

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was the prime sponsor of legislation adopted by the Senate Thursday that will require automakers, under Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards (CAFE), to drastically increase fuel economy to 35 mpg for cars and SUVs over the next 13 years.

The measure, should it become law, will force manufacturers to make vehicles much smaller and lighter, which will make them far more dangerous places to be in the event of a collision. The bill also will result in price increases of $6,000-$7,000 per vehicle (rough estimate; this may be optimistic). Familes who need to seat more than two children are likely to pay far more, as the way the government's CAFE Standard regulations are structured forces automakers to try to sell more small vehicles than large ones. Thus, the automakers are likely to have little choice but to price small vehicles artifically low, and family-sized vehicles artificially high. Thus, families and anyone else needing a large vehicle will pay far more than $6,000-$7,000 more than they would now, not including inflation. (People who are willing to drive extremely small vehicles may get a discount; that is, maybe they will pay only a couple of thousand more.)

Keep that in mind as you consider this: Majority Leader Harry Reid drove to a news conference to promote this outrage in a Chevrolet Suburban, which gets 15 mpg. Michelle Malkin has a picture.

Apparently, Hypocrite Reid says he needs his two Suburbans for security -- his personal safety. Yet if Reid's CAFE increases are adopted, some people will die. Some will be small children and babies too small to even know the name of the branch of government that killed them, or the names of the Congressional leaders who rode in gas guzzlers to promote the bill that would push them into the unsafe mini-cars that drove them to their deaths.

I call Harry Reid a hypocrite in this post, but that really is too nice a word.

Addendum, 7/23/07: Michelle moved the post with the picture to here, and there's another one here._____